The National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association is prepared to release a revised proposal for a national policy on drug testing and therapeutic medication. The document deals with Class 1, 2, 3, and 4 medications, as well as prohibited practices.

In the preamble, the National HBPA says its goal is to “harmonize medication policies and their regulation across the United States. In approaching this goal, the National HBPA has chosen to build on established regulatory precedent (which) includes thresholds or regulatory limits … The policy now also explicitly sets forth the need for withdrawal time guidelines keyed to the regulatory thresholds.”

The document spells out zero-tolerance testing for performance-altering drugs and applies it to prohibited practices such as milkshaking and blood-doping; suggests thresholds and regulatory limits for therapeutic medications and dietary or environmental substances; calls for controlled administration of Salix, formerly known as Lasix; suggests withdrawal times tied to “the best possible scientific research”; acknowledges that the testing of blood, not urine, provides a “significantly superior scientific basis” for regulation of therapeutic medication; calls for testing standards in laboratories; and ongoing research.

The administrative basis for the policy is predicated on the standard that horses are entered to race 48 hours prior to first post time. It says that, where possible, “the therapeutic medication policies have been structured, or on revising should be structured, so as to minimize interference with the process of entering horses to race while preserving the health and welfare of the horse